


Life in pictures (like I used to watch you sleep)

by Plainmusic



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Angst, Famous Harry, Famous Louis Tomlinson, Fluff and Angst, Friendship/Love, Love Confessions, M/M, Met Gala, Sad with a Happy Ending, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-09
Updated: 2019-05-09
Packaged: 2020-02-29 02:41:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,187
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18769540
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Plainmusic/pseuds/Plainmusic
Summary: Louis is hopelessly in love with a boy that isn't his. And sometimes the hardest things we have to do come to cover up for the things we should've done.Or, Louis and harry had a fall out and Louis is still just as in love as he was on day one.





	Life in pictures (like I used to watch you sleep)

**Author's Note:**

> Based on how sad I was seeing Harry and kendall and this is unedited so I'm sorry for any mistake there might be I'm a lazy gal

But mostly, Louis feels stupid. Stupid because it hurt when he found out harry was hosting the met gala on the internet. Stupid because he stayed up all night watching vogue's YouTube videos on Monday trying to link every interview and maybe get a sense of how it was, how harry felt. And stupid because it stung when the photos were out, every media source broadcasting that same picture of Harry and kendall beaming at each other.

And Louis is hurt and ashamed and sad and all in all fucking bursting with emotions; but mostly, he feels stupid. Because he's had his chance. All these years in the band when harry practically worshipped him. All these years when their friendship felt so powerful it could light up the world. All these years when he was so scared to make a move; afraid of rejection and losing his best friend; and now, he's left sitting alone in a fancy hotel room wishing he hadn't been so fucking stupid and reading shitty articles about the way Harry's hand is on Kendall's waist and how the two look so in love.

The worst thing is that Louis doesn't doubt it. Remembers the last time he decided to ignore everyone telling him Harry and kendall have a thing going on. Back in 2015 during the summer he felt like these emotions he had towards Harry couldn't be held back anymore, he knew the band was going on a hiatus, felt like it was the perfect timing. 

He planned a romantic dinner at his. Cooked that sad old meal he had cooked harry the night they moved in together, when he was already so in love and too young to admit it to himself. 

He remembers making the phone call a week ahead of the dinner, inviting harry over and telling him excitedly how he missed him and they should hang out. He remembers thinking the boy's dry, bored response meant nothing; that maybe they were growing apart but it all could be fixed and that harry was busy and nervous about taking a break and that maybe, just maybe, Louis hadn't been reading it all wrong, maybe Harry loves him too. And when harry accepted his offer he was over the moon,feeling like perhaps he could make it all right.

He took a shower and stood in front of the mirror for ages, picking out clothes he knew Harry liked. And then, when the dinner he worked on for hours was placed on the table he set, when the candles were lit and Louis sat down on his sofa, waiting anxiously for the arrival of his beloved guest, then he got the phone call. And Harry's voice telling him he's sorry but he wont be able to make it. 

Now Louis remember only bits of that awful call. How Harry's voice was so void of emotions, how it was obviously a call made from a car, how the next day the only topic on the news was Harry Styles going out on a yacht with the Kardashians and pictures of kendall all over him. 

 

Louis' heart broke. Utterly and completely. Later he released Back to You. Later he realized he will apparently always he stupid. Stupid. Stupid in love.

But he ignored Harry's calls for a month after the yacht incident and he cut the band out of his personal life as much as possible.

It's been a long time since and Harry and him spoke since. Not about Kendall, or that dinner Louis planned, not about Harry canceling and not about the dozens of missed calls. Not about these topics, but about Harry's dad and Louis' mom. And sometimes about Zayn and sometimes about the weather. They haven't seen each other in almost a year and Louis would've been able to take it. 

Take the occasional texts and once a year meetings. Take the buzzfeed and e news and the sun practically worshipping the boy that was once his best friend.

But sitting there, computer in his lap on a bed that's his for a night, and seeing Kendall Jenner looking at his boy looking so happy to see him.. that breaks him. That makes him feel so lonely and humiliated. 

So he calls Niall and immediately agrees to the offer to go out. Niall has perfected his Louis-understanding-methods since harry was no longer in the picture. And now ,being the saint that he is, knows how to identify those night when Louis feels so broken he needs to get royally drunk, solely by the sound of his voice. And Louis loves him for it.

They meet at a small pub in the very heart of London. It's nothing fancy and it's a little late to be going out so they dont even worry about paparazzi getting in their way.

Louis had gotten himself together. He's wearing his fuckmenow jeans and a jacket a little too big on him. 

Already sitting in a booth, Niall is there with his new girl, Jessica, besides him, and Louis likes her and likes the fact that the couple is radiating this cheerful energy and likes that niall is happy and likes that niall is niall . With blue understanding eyes and gentle hugs and words like "we need to get this boy waaaasted".

Jessica gets them all too many shots and Louis soon loses the will to form coherent thoughts; usually that's the queue for him to go dancing.

So he does. And shamelessly so. Soon enough his back is pressed to another guy's front and they're moving together and it feels like how he imagines being free would feel if he only let himself. 

But of course it's cut short. Because he only knows one person that steals every last breath of every one near him. Only one person that when he walks inside a bar it feels like time is moving in slow motion. One person that the mere sight of him makes Louis weak in his knees and light in his head and makes his heart beat like it just cant take it. 

And Harry's there. From where Louis is no longer dancing he can see his walking towards Niall and Jessica's booth. Long strides. Black dess pants and buttoned up white shirt. And he cut his hair, of course it looks better than the pictures. 

Louis is almost thankful when the guy behind him leans forward into his neck to ask what's wrong, because for a second he was sure he died.

His brain is not the thing leading him when he completely ignore his dance partner and carries his body over to the booth. 

Now, inching closer, Louis sees the full picture. Niall and Jessica with beers in front of them, laughing at the two boys sitting opposite from them. One of them unmistakably the boy Louis has been in love with for so many years, the second Liam Payne. Louis almost feels bad for not noticing him walk in, but then, Louis' eyes naturally glue themselves to Harry and no matter how long Louis tried to get them to stop it's a habit he developed the first time his saw the boy and one too strong to break.

He almost doesn't notice it when his feet stop themselves by his friends (?) booth. Almost but not quite. Because at once the laughter dies down and the eyes turn to him and is he crying? He's not sure. His eyes surely sting though. 

Harry's eyes find his. And that hasn't happened in over a year. And even then it wasn't like this. Didnt feel like it does now. 

Louis is definitely crying. Silently, with eyes fixed on the boy he cant help but love, with tears rolling down his cheeks.

Harry stands up. The booth shakes with his movement. When the taller curly boy... man, climbes over Liam and stands by Louis' side Louis isn't sure it's really happening, tears and years of loneliness clouding his senses, but when a hand closes itself around his wrist and a voice he used to adore and then used to hate whispers "Can we talk?" He is convinced this is happening.

Louis can only nod and Harry leads them outside. A large, sure presence by Louis' side as they navigate their way out of the bar through the dancing drunken crowd.

Outside is chilly compared the stuffed pub and Louis is shivering. When they stop a little away from the entrance Louis cant look up. For the first time his eyes choose to look at anything else but the one thing they have been constantly seeking for almost a decade now.

"Louis look at me." Harry says . Now that Louis stopped crying he's a little more aware of the broken tone that shapes itself into Harry's words. "Please." The curly boy whispers. And it's only the fear of Harry crying that gets Louis looking up. 

Blue meets green. With the same intensity it did that first time, all these years ago at a the x-factor when Louis met his soulmate and his soulmate met his best friend. 

"I'm so sorry." Harry says, or maybe just mouths. Louis' catches it still but wonders what for. He doesn't trust his voice so instead his decides to just look deeper into Harry, try to memorize him better until the next time. But instead of explaining himself, Harry just repeated the same sentence over and over as he looks down at Louis.

And over the years after Harry hurt Louis with the most painful blow Louis thought of all the ways he could hurt him back just as bad. But now standing in front of him Louis only sees the 16 year old he fell in love with and wonder what happened during the years that followed that. Where did they go wrong? Was it all in his head? The thought send a shock through his chest just like it had all these times before. But now Louis feels he has to know. Has to ask.

The moment he opens his mouth harry closes his and Louis almost forgot how naturally synchronised they are. "Harry," he breathes out, voice a little sore from crying and neck a little sore from not taking a break from looking up into green eyes. "Did you love me?" 

The question is out and in a way Louis is freed but also in a way he's the most scared hes ever been.

It takes harry about a second before he responds a simple "I still do." That sends Louis into emotional chaos. 

"I'm sorry, what?" He asks . Harry's answer making zero sense in his mind.

Green eyes fill with tears in front of Louis' eyes. "I still do. I always do. It's always you, Lou." 

At that moment Louis' legs give out. He falls to the ground, heart hammering in his ears. No. No. No. What.

Harry doesn't waste a moment and sits himself on the dirty sidewalk by Louis' side. They are engulfed by street lights and loud silence that Louis has always associated with the AM. But now the silence is hurting him and it's either one of them speaks of Louis will break. Completely and finally. 

"Harry I loved you. I loved you and you chose her. And you knew. Harry you knew." The words spill out. And hes crying again.

"Louis I love you and I knew, of course I knew you loved me too. But-" he sobs and Louis is too broken to reach out but the sound is like a stab in the chest. "But they were all around us. Planning our every move, forbidding this and then that and they, fuck, then we couldn't sit next to each other or hang out anywhere we might be seen. And it broke me 'cause you were all I wanted. And I was young and I didn't know what these feelings were and how to fight for them. And I was so scared I- it was a war I didn't know how to fight. Just, at some point I was just trying to save myself. And and that's not a good excuse. Nothing is a good excuse. But it's always been you. Louis. Always." 

When Louis looks up and is greeted with teary eyed Harry it all floats back. Every time they were ordered how to act around each other as if their love was something wrong, as if their friendship was inappropriate. And how it broke harry and how it broke Louis.

So he leans in. Scared and confused like a seventeen year old boy that is still trying to figure out what being in love even means, but this time, the boy goes for it. The boy leans in towards the boy that has always been it for him. And then, when their lips meet, and its salty from tears and years of sadness, it feels like maybe these two boys could find a way to figure it out side by side. Because the war is still going on but they're stronger fighting it together.

**Author's Note:**

> If you like it please leave a comment and kudos. Thank you and lots of love.


End file.
